Engaging Teachers in Professional Development: Course Design at Higher Education

Abstract

A pertinent challenge in an online and/or physical learning setup is that learners appear to be forced by internal and external competitive pressures, as well as pressure of completing the coursework successfully rather than developing inspiration and commitment to learning. Globally, there is a consensus that real education means empowering teahcers - enabling them to visualize issues and matters intellectually, ethically and critically. At the heart of this is teachers‘ continuous and refelctive engagment in designing a course. This paper suggests that higher education must help their faculty members to develop the necessary knowledge, skills and attitude to be able to design and lead a quality course in their respective deciplines. It is important to recognize here that course desgin is not viewed as an official, standard and static doucment; it contains a sequence of planned experiences where students practice and achieve proficiency in content and applied learning skills.